In the early stages of her career, Veronica Roberts – the John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California –worked with artists like Sol LeWitt and Barbara Kruger. They mentioned they both had day jobs while cultivating their artist careers – LeWitt supported himself as a night secretary at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the early 1960s (Robert Ryman and Robert Mangold were guards and Dan Flavin operated the elevator), and Kruger as a graphic designer for the now-defunct Mademoiselle magazine at Condé Nast.
Roberts was intrigued by the day jobs artists work in while pursuing art, so much so that she curated ‘Day Jobs’ a group exhibition currently on view at the Cantor Arts Center in California through 21 July 2024. The museum director and curatorial assistant Jorge Sibaja selected over 90 works by 36 artists based in the United States.
